the meeting coming one day after the white house rejected a republican plan for averting the cliff. chi chief washington correspondent john harwood is outside of the white house this morning. how do business leaders change the equation? >> reporter: the president is trying to orchestrate a consensus behind his approach to deficit reduction. this is a group part of the national governors association executive committee. a diverse group. he carried three states he represents and governors include scott walker, leader of conservative government reform movement going after public employee pensions and shrink government obligations that way. governors are pragmatic. the president is trying to make the case if you look at polls and revenue needs of the government and ageing of our population, the pragmatic thing to do is trim entitlements. the significance of speaker boehner's offer yesterday he put specifics on entitlements on the table. they are significant raising the medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. and enacting a reduced inflation formula for social security benefits and other